CLAIM:
The rigidity and unwillingness of so-called “conservative” churches to accept the gender choices of people is exactly why so many turn away from Christianity.
REBUTTAL:
I think this can be a somewhat true statement, though I do not think the reason is directly related to gender choices.
Understanding why people don’t adhere to Christianity requires an equitable examination of both people and Christian institutions. Let’s begin with people.
People
Which do you think best describes the attitude of most people today?
- We should all just get along.
- It is my body. It is my choice.
It was not too long ago that getting along was a valued personality trait. Across philosophies, religions, and cultures, the virtue of getting along—expressed as harmony, cooperation, and community—was consistently regarded as essential to both personal fulfillment and societal flourishing.
Not so much anymore.
Consider these lyrics from popular children’s entertainment:
- “It’s time to see what I can do, to test the limits and break through. No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I’m free!” “Let it Go,” Elsa from “Frozen.”
- “I do my thing. You do your thing. When we don’t fit in, we stand out in the crowd, and we shout it loud. I do my thing. I’m the one and only. Don’t try to fit in.” “I Do My Thing” – Gabby Duran & The Unsittables.
- You don’t have to be like anybody else. So what’s the problem, why can’t you be like yourself. You’re individual, you might as well let it show. “Do Your Own Thing” by Raven-SymonĂ©.
Nothing like tempting lyrics and a catchy melody to help you believe self-determination is the highest good.
Someone once said:
It is easier to believe a lie that you have heard a thousand times, than the truth which you have only heard once.
The message to take charge of your life and do your own thing has saturated our culture. It has been referred to as the new social ethic. But is it valid?
Maimonides (1138-1204), the Jewish philosopher, once wrote:
Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it.
We become disciples of our culture. Any marketing professional will tell you how easily and effectively people can be persuaded by messages that are appealing to the senses and repeated countless times.
So, what is wrong with that? Some will argue that times change, and people need to change with them. Like so many social trends, words like this make for great slogans, but the reality is something different. Consider this example:
Today, an estimated 80% of African Americans can trace their lineage to an ancestor who arrived through Charleston, South Carolina. Charleston was the largest slave port in the United States. There was a time when the white people who lived there embraced enslaving African Americans. The history is undeniable, but the big question is, was it right or wrong to enslave African Americans? Need we ask?
Yet, there was a time in history when the people living in Charleston believed in owning human chattel. Having that conviction did not make them right; it simply made them like their fellow citizens in the community.
If you are offended by this example, you must ask yourself, why? If you are like most people, the thought of human slavery is offensive. Again, why? What makes your position correct, and the people of Charleston in early American history wrong?
My point is that there are objective standards by which we judge such things, but often we fail to think through why we are convinced of such matters. Are we the product of a higher authority and held to a higher standard, is it a self-imposed conviction, or are we products of groupthink, where we have surrounded ourselves with people who only agree with us?
Biblically, there is an explanation. Listen to the way God described people:
The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood.” (Genesis 8:21)
During his ministry, Jesus described what generations of evil-inclined hearts look like:
Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. (Matthew 24:12)
About 20 years after the time of Christ on earth, the Apostle Paul made this observation:
The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. (Romans 8:7)
According to these descriptions, it appears that human beings cannot be trusted to make the right decisions. Left to themselves, they will eventually challenge what God wants and, in the process, surrender any concern they have for others as they focus on themselves. Is this beginning to sound familiar?
But shouldn’t Christians know better? Absolutely! After all, they have God’s word, the Bible. Jesus said:
Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. (John 17:17)
Christians, however, are not immune to the woes of being sinful humans. The Apostle Paul met the Risen Christ while traveling to Damascus (Acts 9:1-6). After his conversion to Christianity, the Book of Acts in the Bible records that Paul performed incredible miracles. Yet, despite his especially close walk with God, he wrote this about himself:
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? (Romans 7:15–24)
Christians are still human beings with evil-inclined hearts, and it often shows.
The will of God, as expressed in the Bible, exhibits both what pleases Him and what preserves us. Noteworthy is that, contrary to popular belief, the Bible is not an instruction book on how to earn our salvation. Think about it: if every inclination of all human hearts is inclined to evil, our imperfection alone makes it impossible to please a perfect God (Romans 3:23).
So why bother with God? God did for us what we could not do for ourselves. When our evil hearts make us hostile to God, God rescues us through the sacrifice of His own Son (2 Corinthians 5:21). When our hearts were hostile to God, and our sins made us offensive to a perfect God, he sacrificed to save us (Romans 5:8). His will, therefore, is an outline of how to demonstrate our gratitude and deep affection for what He has done for us.
In human relationships, we have some understanding of this. When we fall in love, our actions demonstrate how we feel. Sometimes we give gifts, but most of all, our greatest evidence of how we feel about someone is in what we say about them, how we act towards them, and how we behave around them. In a strong and thriving relationship, the interests of the person we love take precedence over our interests (Philippians 2:3-5). We find out what pleases that person, and then pleasing that person means doing those things.
Similarly, learning God’s will means learning what pleases Him, and then we set out to do those things, knowing there will now be an inner battle occurring in all of us as we try to show God our love.
As we set out to please God, doing His will also preserves us (Deuteronomy 6:24; Jeremiah 29:11; Matthew 6:33; 2 Thessalonians 3:3). However, remember that we have an evil inclination. Within each of us is a struggle to do our own thing and to do what pleases us ahead of what pleases Him.
The Church
Now, put these people collectively into a congregation or a church. You have a few hundred people who share this same evil inclination, living in an era where social media has amplified and venerated personal opinions, and you sometimes have a mess. Yes, Christians know better, but like the Apostle Paul, sometimes they lose the battle between doing the right thing and doing the wrong thing. As they often lose this battle individually, they can also collectively lose this battle.
I have often described the church as a binding together to do something collectively that is difficult or impossible to do alone. Sometimes, unfortunately, it magnifies our evil inclinations. It is easier to hide dirt on a dark-colored carpet, but when the carpet is white, the dirt is quickly visible. Similarly, when people interact with the world, their evil inclinations may blend in with the crowd. But when people bind together under a “Christian” banner as a church, their evil inclinations seem especially obvious.
In this world, our evil inclinations have an enduring presence. That is why being a Christian requires more than a mere “decision,” but a “transformation” (Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 3:18). Some have said that believing is an event while living like a believer is a process. Again, the Apostle Paul described this process well in his own life:
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12–14)
Living life is all about our relationship with God. Left to ourselves, it is a broken relationship due to our evil inclination. God, however, resolved the problem through the sacrifice of His own Son. Jesus took possession of our sins, all those things brought out by our evil inclinations, and made the sacrifice of his own life to bring us a relationship with God. For Christians, individually and collectively, God’s instructions are both true and guiding for us as we try to show God and the world that though we are all just as flawed as the next person, we want to live in a way that pleases God.
Truth and Gender
We are not at liberty to select the parts of God’s word we like best and ignore the rest. Yes, God commands us to love one another (John 13:34-35). That same word, however, warns us not to misrepresent His word, calling what is good as evil, and what is evil as good (Isaiah 5:20). Sometimes, expressing our individuality can be wrong. The rapist, child molester, murderer, robber, and so forth could all be arguable different variants of self-expression. They are not, however, right. Each of us must critically examine what we consider good or evil and ask why. If all we have is an opinion, or the opinions of people who give us a “thumbs up” on social media, then we have no right to accuse others of being wrong, even when what we know they are doing is indeed wrong.
God’s word is the objective standard of truth about what pleases Him and what preserves us. Our evil inclination will always present us with a battle. On what basis do you give in, or do you fight? It must be more than just a feeling or opinion.
Similarly, when Christians look to God’s word about gender issues, it does call for us to make a judgment. It is not, however, to be a self-righteous judgment. Instead, we are to be Christ-like in offering correction, doing it with patience, instruction, humility, and respect (2 Timothy 4:2; 1 Peter 3:15). Our goal as individuals and as churches is not merely to point out error. Our mission is restoration. By administering God’s word, our goal is to help others understand what pleases God and to guide them in living accordingly, as we also need their help to live accordingly.
Ultimately, people find their reasons to join or leave a Christian community. As our society venerates opinion, gender concerns are just a few of the countless reasons people leave a church. When their opinion, however, rises to the level of being truth against the truth of God’s word, then they have left Christianity. It happens, but it should never be our goal as Christians to drive away others who struggle with particular issues. As God is patient and sacrificial towards us, so also are we to imitate that love towards others.
